A GOOD AGE: At 95, Blue Whitney of Quincy is a survivor with style

Tuesday

Mar 4, 2014 at 1:19 AMMar 6, 2014 at 1:08 PM

Blue Whitney, 95, of Quincy, has worked at 37 jobs, including as a TWA air hostess, lost her husband at age 34, raised two small children, stuck by her son who struggled with a life of addiction, yet has kept her focus on being positive.

Sue Scheible The Patriot Ledger @sues_ledger

QUINCY – It’s always a bit of a mystery why some people are such survivors in life. They rise above losses that would buckle the knees of many. Explanations for their resilience include heredity, nurturing in the early years, will power and luck.

Blue Whitney had all of those and something more.

“I wish I really knew what it was,” she said. “I just had to accept it. You just have to go on. Put tragedy in another place somewhere.”

I heard about Whitney from Linda Bowes, assistant to director Tom Clasby at Quincy Elder Services.

“Blue really has quite a story to tell,” Bowes said in an email. “She is just so strong and has such a great attitude toward life. She is in great shape, always dolled up, makeup and all. She worked two jobs until she was 88 years old.”

Whitney turned 95 on Feb. 3.

I dropped by Kennedy Senior Center on a Friday morning to catch Whitney at her weekly bridge game. I spotted her right away, walking down the corridor, dressed up just as Bowes had said. She was about to meet her bridge partners, Janet Gorman, Liz Barry and Danny Dennehy, all at least 20 years younger, and play a spirited round of cards for several hours. “I bid a no trump,” she led off.

Born near Waco, Texas, she grew up on a farm, no indoor plumbing or electricity, one of 12 children, picking cotton and milking cows by age 8.

She graduated from high school at 16, got her first paying job at 17, worked at several airbases, became a TWA airline hostess at age 24, and met and married J. Warren Whitney, a dashing skywriter from a prominent Minneapolis newspaper family, at 25.

Nine years later, in 1955, her husband died in a plane crash that also killed the parents of Ethel Skakel Kennedy. He was the pilot; the private plane exploded in mid-air due to a refueling mistake by a field crew. The storybook romance was over. She was left with two small children.

When a neighbor said, “Let’s pray together that it didn’t happen,” Whitney responded. “But it did happen. It’s over. Nothing is going to change that.”

Three days later, she moved back to Texas, then to California for 50 years. All her savings soon were lost in the stock market when she took bad advice from a family friend, and in 1962 she went back to work.

“I’ve had 37 jobs,” she said with a little laugh and listed a few: she ran a dress shop, had a real estate license, ran an employment agency. Then she landed a secretarial post at UCLA Medical Center in the oncology department, loved it and stayed for 18 years, then went to the California Animal Hospital for 19 years. “I loved working – I’d like to be working now if I could find a job,” she said.

Throughout this time, her son, Greg, who died in Boston in January 2014 at age 64, struggled with depression and addiction. Whitney and her daughter, Pamela Maher, 59, of West Quincy, never gave up on him.

It was a tale of one challenge after another, yet she had sustained such spirit. A few days later, I stopped by her apartment at 1000 Southern Artery. She told me she loves to cook, takes all the group trips to Foxwoods and Twin Rivers casinos, drives, shops, walks, and keeps busy with projects. (She’s given up golf and horseback riding.)

Blessed with an easygoing humor, Whitney reflected on aging: “It’s great,” she said and paused. Then, a little laugh. “Because I don’t have any choice! It’s been a long life, it hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been interesting.”

Longevity runs in her family: her oldest sister lived to 103, five of her six brothers made it into their 90s, her father into his late 80s.

As for how she’s learned to stay so positive, she said, “It’s awfully hard to tell anyone how to do it.” Once her husband was gone, she said. “it was such a shock that anything after that was insignificant.”

Her composure, graciousness and positive style have won the admiration of others. One is 84-year-old John Boyle. “She’s such a great lady, so interesting, always pretty upbeat, always pretty to look at,” Boyle said at the senior center. “She looks like 75 not 95. And her mind is sharp as a tack.”

Reach Sue Scheible at scheible@ledger.com, 617-786-7044, or The Patriot Ledger, P.O. Box 699159, Quincy 02269-9159. Read her Good Age blog on our website. Follow her on Twitter @ sues_ledger.